To connect thousands of New Yorkers to jobs in remote corners of the city, bus-rapid-transit with dedicated traffic lanes and platform-level boarding for riders to speed the trip, is the answer.

From "Take the A Train" to The Taking of Pelham 123, New York City's subway system is as iconic as the city itself. Its ability to connect millions of people to jobs, education, and health care is a major catalyst of the city's continued growth.

But our mass transit options fail to serve our city's communities equally. Nearly 900,000 city residents commute more than an hour each way to work—mostly to jobs that pay less than $35,000 per year. Inaccessible subway stations and long, unreliable bus trips are facts of life in many areas.

Simply put, New Yorkers deserve more from their mass transit system.

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The good news is that we have the building blocks to give it to them. On seven corridors across the city, select bus service (SBS) has been implemented by the city Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This service has reduced travel times and increased bus ridership. Along these corridors, SBS makes sense.

However, the ideal solution to expand and modernize public transportation in outer-borough communities with limited subway access is bus rapid transit. BRT is a high-performance system that delivers the permanence, speed, and reliability of rail, along with the flexibility of bus systems, for a fraction of the cost.

Like SBS, BRT includes traffic-signal priority and in-station kiosks that let riders pay fares prior to boarding. Full-featured BRT also has dedicated lanes and platform level-boarding for riders in wheelchairs or with strollers. These features allow the system to achieve even greater reliability and significantly shorten commutes.

Many of New York City's burgeoning job centers are located in outer-borough clusters poorly served by transit. Businesses in these neighborhoods include retail, education, health care, manufacturing, transportation, logistics, and other industries looking to take advantage of less expensive real estate and other lucrative opportunities available in these communities.

These businesses also face challenges in attracting a qualified workforce, in part because of isolation from the commercial centers of Manhattan. By reducing commute times and improving the overall rider experience, BRT would do away with lengthy trips and unreliable service which create a barrier to people finding well-paying jobs.

What's more, better bus service is a boon for small stores and local retailers, as transit riders are far more likely than motorists to walk around and shop. This new service would have the significant positive economic impact that increased foot traffic brings to communities and corridors.

Perhaps BRT's most distinguishing feature is the investment in permanent routes and stations. Other cities that have implemented permanent route service, including Bogotá and Mexico City, have shown that it facilitates residential and commercial growth, land revitalization and other environmental benefits. Cleveland's HealthLine has led to more than 5,000 jobs and $5.8 billion in new investment along the route since opening in 2008; every dollar invested in the city's BRT system generates $29 in economic development along the city's Euclid Corridor. With these figures, it is no surprise that the HealthLine is credited for engendering a rebirth of Cleveland's hospital cluster.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has shared his vision of bringing the city a robust BRT network that includes 20 routes. Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg has already made significant, meaningful progress toward this goal by speeding up SBS implementation.

But changing a streetscape is never an easy political task. To overcome opposition, local elected officials and communities need to be actively engaged in the planning process. The administration will not have to do this alone. Support is also being driven by a diverse organization of local advocacy, labor, policy and business groups backed by the Rockefeller Foundation that have come together for the purpose of addressing transportation inequality in the city through BRT.

We are hopeful that the mayor's vision for high-quality BRT is realized, and that it will become as iconic in New York City as our subway system.

Bill Lipton is New York state director of the Working Families Party. Jen Hensley is executive director of the Association for a Better New York.